Page 27 of Luka

“You can rephrase,” she whines.

“Hmm?”

“You can rephrase your question.”

As soon as I let go of her ear, she bolts upright and cups the sensitive flesh, her eyes diverted from mine, her back hunched.

“Wow, thanks, Peach. How kind of you to bend the rules for me.” Clearing my throat, I cup the back of her neck and pull her against me. “Why did you come to the US? Please, feel free to elaborate on any pertinent information you could guess I’d want to know.”

Her arms wrap around her stomach while she shifts on my lap, stiff as a board against me. “My boyfriend and I ran away to be together,” she says, her voice low and scared. “My father is protective and would never have approved. He has too many contacts in Mexico for us to stay there, so we came here in hopes that he wouldn’t find us.”

Oh.Of course.

I want to smack myself in the forehead for my naivety. Theboyfriend. She ran away for the boyfriend.

She’s a rich girl with a cliché possessive father, probably went to a private school, met a preppy boy, fell in love, and ran off into the sunset. The brand is a bit weird, but everything else clicks into place.

She’s just a spoiled, sheltered, rich girl in love. I could vomit.

“What’s your father’s name?” I ask, just to verify, but already I feel at ease.

“It’s my turn to ask a question,” she says weakly in response.

My hand wraps around her throat, and I squeeze lightly while pulling her against me. “I think you should just answermyquestions from now on. I believe I’ve humored you enough. Do you agree?”

When she doesn’t answer, I squeeze her throat tightly enough to cut off her air supply. Her hands go to mine in panic while she struggles against me, and after a few moments, she tries to nod. I count to ten before letting go.

She gasps and rolls to face me, her head hiding against my chest as she sucks in panicked breaths.

“Do you agree, Lucia?”

“Yes,” she croaks immediately through a sob.

She continues crying, her head buried in my chest not for comfort but for shelter, an illusion of safety. I pat her back when too much time feels like it passes. “There there,” I mock.

She tenses against my touch then sits up, her cheeks wet with tears. Wiping hair out of her face, she seems to prepare herself to speak. “His name is Emmanuel Garcia. He’s fifty-six years old and lives in Tijuana, Mexico…” As she speaks, going on about useless facts I don’t care about, she shifts back on my knee, gaining distance from me. I let her. If for no other reason than to reward her for good behavior.

“What else would you like to know?” Lucia asks when she’s finished giving me her father’s future obituary.

I shrug. “That’s plenty for?—”

Pain crackles like thunder in my balls as Lucia’s fist connects through my athletic shorts, square on, like she spent half her life preparing for this, practicing her aim.

All that comes from my mouth is a startled wheeze for a moment as my stomach flips, pushing bile up my throat. The wheeze turns into a groan by the time Lucia is feet from the door. My hands cup my aching balls, but it’s far too late to protect them.

“Help!” she screams, tugging at the metal. “Somebody help me! Help! Help!” She pounds her fists on the metal then tugs, searching for the lock in the process.

I climb to my feet and stumble, a wave of nausea trying to force me back into the chair. A growl barrels out of me as I storm to the door and arrive just as she gets the deadbolt unlatched and mistakenly believes that’s going to solve all her problems. She didn’t see the bolt up top.

She screams when I spin her around and slam her into the wall by the door but is silenced a moment later when I slap my hand over her mouth and wait. For minutes she struggles against me, kicking her legs, screaming pointlessly into my hand, yanking her arms that I have pinned to her chest.

The pain in my balls subsides, but it’s replaced with lustful fury. I stare into Lucia’s eyes, waiting for what I know will come. Another minute later, it does.

A knock sounds on my door. It has to be the woman down the hall, the one with the art studio. I’m the only other person who inhabits this floor of the building, and the only person with an apartment. If anyone hears things on other floors, I wouldn’t know it. I’ve never met anyone who uses the rest of the building, only seen the occasional person in passing. People mind their own business here, for the most part.

My hand presses firmly against Lucia’s mouth to trap any sound in when her eyes widen and she tries mightily to get the attention of the person outside my door.

“Hello?” the art lady calls. “Is everything okay in there?”

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